Qian Zhang

Dr Qian Forrest Zhang joined Singapore Management University in 2005. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Sociology and the Associate Dean for Research at the School of Social Sciences. He completed his undergraduate training at Fudan University in Shanghai and obtained a PhD in sociology from Yale University in 2004. His research focuses on China’s agrarian political economy and rural development but extends to a range of other issues in contemporary China, including self-employment, stratification and inequality, social mobility, and family relations. His recent works have investigated agricultural cooperatives, industrial pig farming, the agrarian capitalist class, and land politics. He is the recipient of the 2015 Bernstein & Byres Prize in agrarian change.

Education

• PhD in Sociology, Yale University, 2004
• MA in Urban Geography, University of Georgia, 1998
• BS in Management Information System, Fudan University, 1995

Companies

• Associate Professor Singapore Management University (2013)
• Assistant Professor Singapore Management University (2005 — 2012)

Research Interests

• Agrarian political economy
• Social class
• Family and social mobility
• Self-employment and informal economy
• Contemporary chinese society

Publications

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

• Zhang, Q.F., 2022. ‘Building productivism in rural China: The case of residential restructuring in Chengdu.’ Geoforum, 128: 103-114.
• Zhang, Q.F., Zeng, Hongping, 2022. ‘Producing Industrial Pigs in Southwestern China: The Rise of Contract Farming as a Coevolutionary Process.’ Journal of Agrarian Change, 22(1).
• Zhang, Q.F., Zeng, Hongping, 2021. ‘Politically Directed Accumulation in Rural China: The Making of the Agrarian Capitalist Class and the New Agrarian Question of Capital.’ Journal of Agrarian Change, 21(4): 677- 701.
• Zhang, Q.F., Hu, Zhanping, 2021. ‘Rural China under the Covid-19 Pandemic: Differentiated Impacts, Rural-Urban Inequality, and Agroindustrialization.’ Journal of Agrarian Change, 21(3): 591-603.
• Andreas, J., Kale, S.K., Levien, M., Zhang, Q.F., 2020. ‘Rural Land Dispossession in China and India.’ The Journal of Peasant Studies, 47(6): 1109-1142.
• Hu, Zhanping, Zhang, Q.F., Donaldson, J.A., 2017. ‘Farmers’ Cooperatives in China: A Typology of Fraud and Failure.’ The China Journal, 78: 1-24.
• Gong, Weigang, Zhang, Q.F., 2017. ‘Betting on the Big: State-brokered Land Transfers, Large-scale Agricultural Producers, and Policy Implementation.’ The China Journal, 77: 1-26.